Japan for Runners & Marathon Travelers

About this book

Japan does not just host races. It runs — at dawn on the riverbanks, in the castle parks at lunch, through the winter in the greatest citizen marathon fields on earth, and every New Year it stops the nation for a sash carried over a mountain by students.

200 entries in eight parts, each in one fixed format — History & Setting, The Course & How It Works, People, Practice & Meaning, and Running It: Travel, Entry & Care. How the system works: lotteries and open doors, running stations, sento finishes, coin lockers and the volunteer army. The great city marathons one by one — Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nagoya's vast women's field, Beppu–Oita's old severity. A full part on the ekiden, the sash relay at the heart of Japanese running, from Hakone's mountain to the schoolyard. Trail and sky races, lakes and islands, the running year from first sunrise run to foliage descent, the everyday routes of the palace loop and the Kamo River, and a handbook of entries, aid manners, garbage law and the runner's promise.

No race is ranked and no date or fee is asserted — every entry closes by sending you to the official channel, because in Japan the outline is the contract and it changes by the year. This is the complete guide to the ground the stopwatch stands on: how to enter, how to travel, how to run as a guest in the country that runs best.